Category: Talents

National Bravery Awards Year 2016

Shivampet Ruchitha, Telangana

8-year-old Shivampet Ruchitha was the youngest to receive the award this year. Ruchita saved two of her school mates when a train hit their school bus. She noticed that their bus had stopped on a railway track and a train was coming towards them. Showing extraordinary presence of mind, she pushed two students out of the window and jumped off the bus herself too. Unfortunately, she could not save her younger sister who was sitting in the front row. Her younger brother sustained severe injuries, but he has recovered now. 16 students, the driver, and the conductor lost their lives in that accident. She was honoured with the Geeta Chopra award.

Arjun Singh, Uttarakhand

A tiger entered 16-year-old Arjun Singh’s house in Uttarakhand. He showed extreme courage and fought it off, saving his mother’s life who had fainted as soon as the tiger entered. Arjun went into a room and picked up a sickle to fight the tiger. As it was too small to hit from a distance, Arjun grabbed a stick and waved it towards the tiger. He did not stop until the villagers reached there and the animal ran away on seeing the crowd. Arjun received the Sanjay Chopra award.

Late Shivansh Singh, Uttar Pradesh

Shivansh Singh, a 14-year-old medal-winning swimmer from Faizabad, was posthumously honoured with the prestigious Bharat Award. He lost his life while trying to save his friend from drowning in the Saryu River.

Late Gaurav Kawduji Sahastrabuddhe, Maharashtra

Gaurav was only 15 when he lost his life while rescuing four of his friends from drowning in the Ambazari lake. He was a good swimmer and had gone to the lake one afternoon in June 2014. While playing in the water, his friends suddenly started drowning. According to the police, Gaurav swam for 20 minutes and rescued them all. But while trying to pull out the last boy, he hit his head on a submerged stone and drowned. He received the Bharat Award.

Aromal SM, Kerala

12-year-old Aromal is one of the six winners from Kerala. He saved two women from drowning in a 14-feet pond and was honoured with the Bapu Gaidhani Award.

Rakeshbhai Shanabhai Patel, Gujarat

This 13-year-old received the Bapu Gaidhani Award for saving a boy who accidentally fell into a well.

Ramdinthara, Mizoram

Ramdinthara saved two boys who were stuck on a transformer fence. The 15-year-old pulled the boys out with his bare hands and took them to the hospital. Son of a tea-seller, Ramdinthara was walking past the transformer when he saw that two boys were struggling to free themselves after falling on the fence. He overcame his fear in just a few seconds and grabbed their hair to pull them up. He received the Bapu Gaidhani Award.

Abinash Mishra, Odisha

Abinash Mishra, 12, saw his friend drowning in Kushabhadra River. Without thinking twice, he just jumped into the river and swam to the shore after saving his friend. He is one of the recipients of the General National Bravery Award.

Chongtham Kuber Meitei, Manipur

13-year-old Chongtham Kuber Meitei became a local hero after he jumped into a 10-feet deep well to save a girl from drowning. He was awarded with the General National Bravery Award.

Kashish Dhanani, Gujarat

10-year-old Kashish protected his 15-months-old sibling from a German Shepherd. He received the General National Bravery Award.

Muhammad Shamnad, Kerala

14-year-old Muhammad Shamnad showed outstanding courage when he risked his life to save a little girl from drowning in a pond. He received the General National Bravery Award.

Mohit Mahendra Dalvi, Maharashtra

14-year-old Mohit saved his 10-year-old neighbour from drowning in Banganga Lake last year. When Krishna Pashtye slipped into the lake, Mohit was the only one of the hundreds of onlookers who had the courage to dive into the lake and save her. He was honoured with General National Bravery Award.

Abhijith K.V, Kerala

15-year-old Abhijith was honoured with the General National Bravery Award for saving his friend from drowning in a 25 feet deep pond.

Sarwanand Saha, Chhattisgarh

Sarwanand Saha received the General National Bravery Award for saving a man from drowning in Mahanadi River.

Sai Krishna Akhil Kilambi, Telangana

This 15-year-old saved his mother from electrocution. His mother came in contact with a live electric wire at their residence in Agapura when she was washing the floor. Sai Krishna was quick to think on his feet and he instantly rushed forward to turn off the mains supply while making sure that he did not step into the water. He was honoured with the General National Bravery Award.

Dishant Mehndiratta, Haryana

Dishant Mehndiratta was at his home in Panchkula, with his mother and younger brother. His father had just left for work when a stranger knocked at the door asking for him. The family invited him in and Dishant’s mother, Archana, called her husband to inform about the visitor. His father couldn’t recognise the man and asked him to come later. This was when the stranger asked if he could use the toilet. And while Archana was leading the way to show him the bathroom, he suddenly took out a knife and put it on her neck. He started threatening the children, asking them to bring out all the cash and valuables. Dishant made a quick plan and fell down on the man’s feet pretending to plead with him. And after a few seconds, he suddenly stood up, grabbed the knife from his hand, and threw it away. The family raised an alarm and got him arrested. Dishant received the General National Bravery Award for this courageous act.

Joena Chakraborty, Chhattisgarh

When a man snatched away her father’s mobile phone, 10-year-old Joena Chakraborty started running after him without wasting a single second, and brought the phone back.

Nilesh Bhil, Maharashtra

Nilesh Bhil from Kothli was awarded the General National Bravery Award for saving a boy from drowning.

Beedhovan, Kerala

14-year-old Beedhovan saved a boy from electrocution and was honoured with the General National Bravery Award.

Nithin Philip Mathew, Kerala

13-year-old Nithin was honoured for saving his neighbour’s family after their house caught fire in a cylinder blast.

Bhimsen, Uttar Pradesh

A boat got overturned in Sarayu River. 12-year-old Bhimsen, who was present on his own boat, jumped into the water and saved 14 people from drowning.

Angelica Tynsong, Meghalaya

Angelica Tynsong, 13, from Ri Bhoi district, saved her 7-month-old brother when their house caught fire. Her brother was sleeping while she was washing clothes, and their parents were not present in the house at the time of the incident.

Anandu Dileep, Kerala

14-year-old Anandu Dileep was going to his tuition class with his friends. They were crossing a bridge when his friend slipped and fell into the 10-feet-deep canal. Anandu jumped into the water and rescued him.

Maurice Yengkhom, Manipur

Maurice was playing on the terrace with his friend who suddenly got an electric shock. Had it not been for Maurice’s presence of mind, his friend would have lost his life. The 14-year-old picked up a cane chair and started hitting him till he was free.

Vaibhav Ramesh Ghangare, Maharashtra

Vaibhav Ramesh Ghangare from Wardha also received the General National Bravery Award. He saved a 6-year-old child from drowning.

The winners of the Nobel peace prize, the Pakistani teenage activist Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights advocate, said the award represented a huge boost to the cause of children’s rights around the world.

“Who is Malala?” shouted the Taliban gunman who leapt onto a crowded bus in northwestern Pakistan two years ago, then fired a bullet into the head of Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old schoolgirl and outspoken activist. who survived her injuries and went on to become an impassioned advocate, global celebrity and the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize alongside the Indian child rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi.

Meet Remya Jose. She is the inventor of the washing-cum-exercise machine that won her a National Award. When Remya Jose was 14 years old, her mother became ill while her father underwent cancer treatments. Going to school was a two-hour commute each way, and the family didn’t own a washing machine, which made the process of cleaning clothes long and tiresome for her twin sister. Jose, now 16, decided the best way to help her family was to create her own washing machine that wouldn’t need electricity.

After drawing out the basic diagram, Jose’s father took it to a local mechanic shop, where workers agreed to put the machine together. After purchasing the materials, Jose gave the mechanics instructions of exactly how she wanted it done.

The end product has an aluminum cabin with a horizontal iron net wire cylinder. This cylinder connects to the pedal system, which looks like any other with a chain, pedals and a seat. Clothes go into the cylinder, the cabin fills with enough water to level the clothes and the washing cycle begins, soaking the laundry for at least 10 minutes. The user pedals for three to four minutes while the cylinder rotates to clean the laundry. Through the pedaling action the laundry is centrifuged, which means they dry about 80 percent.

Jose’s invention could serve rural India with a means of cleaning laundry without the use of electricity, which can often be scarce in certain areas. This washing machine becomes especially useful when there is a break in supply and residents are left without power for hours days. The invention is also cost effective — approximately Rs.2000, which is about $33 USD. Thanks to it’s portability, it can be shared among an entire community.

At age 5 Satvik has performed 50 magic shows with 75 amazing magic tricks in schools, old age homes and special schools with the objective to spread awareness of Down Syndrome, as on May 19, 2014. He was not an ordinary kid attending classes at UKG- Bethany Pre-Primary School in Puttur, instead is a extra-ordinary kid magician who has performed over hundred magic shows in Karnataka, in creating awareness on mental retardation through magic shows- and for his exceptional achievement for 2014, honoured by President of India-Pranak Mukerjee on Children’s Day-14 November at Rastrapathi Bhavan in New Delhi. This extra-ordinary and talented kid magician is none other than Satvik Nayak of Puttur, the son of Umesh and Roopashri Nayak.

Satvik has performed over 100 magic shows in various parts of Karnataka, mainly to bring awareness on Mental Retardation at Schools, Special schools, Old-age homes and Orphanages free of cost, along with his mentally challenged uncle-Suresh Nayak, who is a recipient of four Limca records for telephonic Number Memory and magic shows. Satvik who had watched his uncle performing magic shows, wanted to learn magic also and follow in his uncle’s footsteps. Satvik has been entered into the Asia Book of Records & India book of Records for being the youngest magician to perform magic shows for a noble cause.

Sandeep Maheshwari is a name among millions who struggled, failed and surged ahead in search of success, happiness and contentment. Just like any other middle class guy, he too had a bunch of unclear dreams and a blurred vision of his goals in life. All he had was an undying learning attitude to hold on to. Rowing through ups and downs, it was time that taught him the true meaning of his life.

And once discovered, he consistently kept resigning from his comfort zone and to share the secret of his success with the entire world. It is this very urge of helping people and doing something good for the society that inspired him to take the initiative of changing people’s lives in the form of “Free Life-Changing Seminars and Sessions”.

No wonder people connect with him and his mission of ‘Sharing’ is now being actively propagated and practiced by millions. It is his diligent focus, the great support of his family and the faith of his team that keeps him going.

Largely considered cricket’s greatest batsman, Sachin Tendulkar was born April 24, 1973, in Bombay, India, to a middle-class family, the youngest of four children. His father was a professor while his mother worked for a life insurance company.

Named after his family’s favorite music director, Sachin Dev Burman, Tendulkar wasn’t a particularly gifted student, but he’d always shown himself to be a standout athlete. He was 11 years old when he was given his first cricket bat, and his talent in the sport was immediately apparent. At the age of 14, he scored 329 out of a world-record stand of 664 in a school match. As his accomplishments grew, he became a sort of cult figure among Bombay schoolboys.

After high school, Tendulkar enrolled at Kirti College, where his father also taught. The fact that he decided to go to the school where his father worked came as no surprise. Tendulkar’s family is very close, and years after he’d achieved stardom and cricket fame, he continued to live next door to his parents.

Pichai Sundararajan (born 12 July 1972), better known as Sundar Pichai, is a technology executive who is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Google Inc. Formerly Product Chief at Google, Pichai was announced as the next Chief Executive Officer of Google on August 10, 2015, as part of the restructuring process making Alphabet Inc. as Google’s parent company. He assumed the position upon the completion of the process on October 2, 2015.

Pichai was born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India in 1972 to Lakshmi and Raghunathan Pichai. He spent his childhood in Madras (now Chennai). His father was a senior electrical engineer in General Electric Company and managed a factory that made electrical components. Sundar grew up in a two-room apartment on 46th Street, 7th Avenue, in Ashok Nagar, Chennai. His parents didn’t have a phone, let alone a computer, until he was 12. Was so devoted to academics many cannot remember him as a youngster. Studious Pichai worked his way up and won a scholarship to Standford. Sundar completed his Class X at Jawahar Vidyalaya, Ashok Nagar Chennai and completed the Class XII from Vana Vani school located in the IIT campus, Chennai. Pichai earned his degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in Metallurgical Engineering. He holds an M.S. from Stanford University in Material Sciences and Engineering and a MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, respectively.

Pichai worked in engineering and product management at Applied Materials and in management consulting at McKinsey & Company. Pichai joined Google in 2004, where he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google’s client software products, including Google Chrome and Chrome OS, as well as being largely responsible for Google Drive. He went on to oversee the development of different apps such as Gmail and Google Maps. On November 19, 2009, Pichai gave a demonstration of Chrome OS and the Chromebook was released for trial and testing in 2011 and released in public in 2012. On May 20, 2010, he announced the open-sourcing of the new video codec VP8 by Google, and introduced the new video format WebM.

On March 13, 2013, Pichai added Android to the list of Google products he oversees. Android was formerly managed by Andy Rubin. He was rumored to be one of the contenders for the CEO position of Microsoft in 2014. He was a director of Jive Software from April 2011 to July 30, 2013. Pichai was announced as the next CEO of Google on August 10, 2015. After previously being appointed Product Chief by CEO Larry Page on October 24, 2014. He stepped into the new position upon the completion of the formation of Alphabet Inc., the new holding company for the Google company family.

He is married to Anjali Pichai a chemical engineering student and same year batchmate at IIT Kharagpur, and has two children.

Priyanshi began studying mental math at the age of six, and in 2010, at the age of eleven she was the youngest participation at the Mental Calculation World Cup to win. She not only won the competition, she was also the only participant ever to achieve 100 percent accuracy in addition, multiplication and square roots. Her feats as the human calculator have won her recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records and the Limca Book of World Records. She is the daughter of prosperous businessman Satyen Somani.

Akrit Jaswal

Akrit is one of the older ‘children’ on the list, but his achievements for his age are remarkable. Akrit is 20 years old and is already a practicing physician and has been working in the medical field for more than a decade. Akrit began walking and talking at an early age, and is reported to already have been reading Shakespeare at the age of five. When he was seven, Akrit performed surgery for a family that could not afford healthcare for their daughter. Then, at the age of 12, Akrit was the youngest student to be admitted to medical school in India. He is now studying more his master’s degree in applied chemistry.

Ryan Wang

Ryan is a musical prodigy who recently shocked the audience when he played piano at the 2013 American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition. When Ryan was a toddler he began playing the electric guitar, and at the age of four his mother began to take him to lessons. In just a year, he had mastered long piano concertos, quickly surpassing the musical talents of other children his age. He is only five years old, but he has already won the hearts of millions.

Giuliano Stroe

When Giuliano goes to his school in Romania wearing a tee-shirt, he looks like any other kid his age, but when he takes it off, he reveals his extraordinary figure. He is now one of the world’s youngest body builders, beginning his career path at only two years old and since he has graced the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records several times. Stroe holds the record for quickly walking on his hands with a weighted ball between his legs. Stroe is only 8 years old, and still he works out on his own volition, a trait that many of us adults could be jealous of!

Farrell Wu

Farrell Wu was named one of the world’s smartest kids by the magazine Business Insider after earning a perfect score while participating in the Australian Mathematics Competition in 2012. Wu won the competition by solving math problems that most adults couldn’t even figure out, advancing way beyond the expectations of his age group. Wu began to solve math problems after his first birthday, and was already able to trade stocks when he was three. Now he is studying algebra at an undergraduate college level at the University of Michigan. He hopes to be an investment banker when he’s older.

Taylor Ramon Wilson

Taylor Wilson is barely old enough to drive a car, but he’s already a nuclear scientist and a science advocate. He was born in Texarkana, Arkansas in 1994 and was immediately intrigued by rockets and space science. When he was a kid, he had the periodic table of elements hung up in his room and within a week he memorized the entire chart. At the age of 14, Taylor became the youngest person to produce nuclear fission, and since then he has won numerous awards for his ideas and achievements in science. Taylor presented his ideas at a TED conference, and they were well received by many scientists.

Christopher Paolini

Christopher is best known for writing the Inheritance Cycle, a set of novels that include four books: Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr and Inheritance. Paolini is no longer a child, but he began to write the Inheritance series when he was only 15 years old upon graduating high school. By the age of 19, Paolini was already a New York Times bestselling author, an achievement that is rare for a child. His book Eragon was turned into a feature film that was released in 2006 and directed by Stefen Fangmeier. Paolini is now in his thirties and lives in Montana.

Varun Agarwal is an Indian first-generation entrepreneur, film maker and author. Born on December 6, 1987, in Bangalore, India, he did his schooling from Bishop Cotton Boys’ School and started engineering in CMR Institute of Technology Bangalore, Karnataka. He decided to drop out of college because he lacked interest in pursuing engineering. Thereafter he started making short films. He co-founded Alma Mater and two other companies — Reticular and Last Minute Films. He is also the author of a bestseller book How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company.

Varun Agarwal is a filmmaker, entrepreneur and a bestselling author. After dropping his BE (Bachelor of Engineering) graduation in Telecommunication, at 22 years, he co-founded his second business venture, Alma Mater, with his friend Rohn Malhotra. Alma Mater has successfully partnered with educational institutions across India in being able to make and supply customized sweatshirts to alumni. It is now India’s largest company for providing merchandise to students of schools and colleges. He has three companies to his credit – Alma Mater, Reticular and Last Minute Films. His company Alma Mater is India’s largest provider of merchandise and memorabilia to schools and colleges.

As a filmmaker he has directed the likes of Preity Zinta and AR Rahman in music videos and his films have over a million views on Youtube. His debut novel “How I Braved Anu Aunty And Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company” became a National Bestseller within a month of its release and is already in its third print. He has been featured on the cover of India Today, The New York Times and numerous other periodicals as well as on the CNBC Young Turks Show. Varun has given lectures at various colleges including IIM-B.

Co-Founded Alma Mater in 2009. Alma Mater is an E-commerce company dealing in primarily student memorabilia for top schools and colleges of India. Alma Mater has been featured on the cover of India Today, CNBC’s Young Turks and on The Economic Times. It was listed as India’s 25 most unique E-commerce companies. Alma Mater raised capital form the Indian Angel Network in 2012.
www.almamaterstore.in

Founded Last Minute Films in 2007. Last Minute Films is an independent production company based in Bangalore. With over a Million views on Youtube, Last Minute Films is one of India’s foremost production companies for digital content. The company recently won the Gold at the Big Bang Advertising awards.
www.lastminutefilms.in

Co-Founded Reticular in 2010. Reticular is social media management company. With clients that include Megamart, GK Vale Denizen etc Reticular is one of Bangalore’s most prominent Social Media companies.
www.reticular.in